someone told me to lie as much as you need to on your cv, by the time they figure out you don't know what you're doing it would be much more hassle to sack you and retrain someone else so they'll keep you on anyway

only state 'We can advise that barleysugar worked here as a full-time employee betweeen dates x and y'> They very rarely say more than that now because of potential litigation.
So the question is whether you think they'll take up references or not. If it's casual work they might not bother.

straight from Uni pretty much, said he had a masters in [XYZ]. He didn't even complete his BA ffs. Got a tidy writing / editing type job on the bottom rung of a company, worked his way up, got better and better jobs and he is doing rather well now, gone freelance. He is a talented chap anyway, but I am sure this gave his CV the boost it needed. They never even checked, what is the worst that can actually happen, they fire you?

I bet that woman wasn't actually jailed for lying on her CV, but for this bit:

"When asked to provide a reference she forged a letter of recommendation and signed it using the name of her now husband, a chief petty officer.
Mackay, of Plymouth, admitted fraud by making a false representation and asked for 11 similar offences to be taken into consideration.
She also admitted making a false instrument - the reference and a forged naval discharge certificate."

Forging official documents - especially from the Navy, and especially when you're working for the NHS - can get you into big trouble, but lying on a CV will get nobody sent to prison.

only people who do shit jobs actually put the months of employment on their CVs anyway, so you might not have to lie. If you've worked somewhere over the turn of a year just put, for example, 2012-2013 and you're not really lying. Looks like you've worked somewhere for two years, in reality you might have worked there for, idk, four months, but unless you've given permission for a reference from someone within that company then it doesn't matter.